Safeguarding Our Unity: RPR’s Citation of a Woman Preaching
If allowing a woman to preach during a Sunday morning worship service is not an “important delinquency or grossly unconstitutional proceeding,” then I am at a loss for what is….The PCA is not a loose federation of churches. We are united by our Constitution and our commitment to the Scriptures. The actions complained of here egregiously violate both, and the matter must be redressed.
[Presbyterian Polity] Editor’s Note: What follows is a public response to a public criticism of a committee recommendation before the 50th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA).
The Review of Presbytery Records (RPR) Committee has recommended to the 50th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) that Metro New York Presbytery be cited to appear before the Standing Judicial Commission (SJC) for finding that one of its churches and one of its Teaching Elders did nothing wrong when they allowed a woman to preach a sermon during Sunday morning worship. The Assembly should approve this recommendation. To do so is a proper exercise of review and control under our Church’s well-established polity. Presbyteries are not a law unto themselves, and when such a gross breach of the Scriptures and our Constitution occurs, the offending presbytery must be called to account by the General Assembly.
What is Review and Control and How Does it Work?
The polity of the PCA is an inherently federal system. Specific powers are delegated to the several courts of the Church: the session, the presbytery, and the General Assembly. Others are reserved for congregations (e.g. calling a pastor or voting to leave the PCA). This distributed system is reinforced by a system of checks on the power of the various bodies to which power is entrusted. Decisions of lower courts can be brought to higher courts through various methods, including appeals, complaints, and references (see Book of Church Order [BCO] 39).
One very important—but perhaps less well-understood—means of ensuring the courts of the Church abide by the Constitution and the Scriptures is review and control as set forth in BCO 40. Paragraph 40-1 provides as follows:
It is the right and duty of every court above the Session to review, at least once a year, the records of the court next below, and if any lower court fails to present its records for this purpose, the higher court may require them to be produced immediately, or at any time fixed by this higher court.
In practical terms, this means that presbyteries review session minutes, and the General Assembly reviews presbytery minutes. Most (likely all) presbyteries have a standing committee assigned to this task. The PCA General Assembly has its committee for the review of presbytery records (RPR) which is governed by Rules of Assembly Operation (RAO) chapter 16. This particular committee consists of one representative from each presbytery (RAO 8-5).
The designated RPR committee members meet each year prior to the General Assembly. Members are split up into ‘read teams’ with responsibility for the various presbyteries. Members then read the minutes of the presbyteries assigned to their teams, and each team submits a proposed report on its assigned presbyteries. The committee as a whole then meets for two very long days and part of a third to go over the proposed reports, debate various points, offer amendments, and ultimately produce a report to the GA.
If RPR finds discrepancies in presbytery minutes either due to poor record keeping or dubious practice, it has four options. First, it can provide a notation to the presbytery indicating a minor clerical error, as outlined in RAO 16-6(c)(3). No response is required to a notation, and it is communicated only to the presbytery and does not appear in the report to GA. Second, RPR can find an exception of form, as described in RAO 16-6(c)(2). These include violations of the guidelines for keeping minutes, and violations of the rules of order are typically reported under this category. Exceptions of form are also reported only to the presbytery in question, and no response is required.
For more serious violations, RPR can find an exception of substance. To quote from the RAO 16-6(c)(1): “Apparent violations of the Scripture or serious irregularities from the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in America, actions out of accord with the deliverances of the General Assembly, and matters of impropriety and important delinquencies, and any noncompliance with RAO 16-3.e.5 should be reported under this category.” Exceptions of substance are included in RPR’s report to the GA. They can be debated on the floor of the Assembly when the report comes up, and the findings can be amended. If an exception of substance is approved by the Assembly, the presbytery in-question is required to provide a response to RPR, and the next year’s committee will judge whether the response is adequate. Sometimes the presbytery in-question and the GA, through RPR, can go back and forth for several years.Relevant to this article is the fourth option: a citation to appear before the Standing Judicial Commission (SJC). This process is described in BCO 40-5. The first paragraph reads as follows:
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Sixteen Lies Satan Feeds Us About Worship
There are so many lies abroad about worship. Here are some of the most popular, in no particular order…. Everyone else worships better than you; you’re the only one who gets bored, has trouble concentrating, and whose mind wanders during prayer. The small offerings you bring, the pitiful singing you give, your feeble attempts at praying, etc., are an insult to the Lord. Better to stay away than offend the Lord with such. These are only a few of the thousands of lies about worship.
God is Spirit. And they who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth (John 4:24).
Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; tremble before Him all the earth (Psalm 96:9).
If worship is powerful–that is, if kneeling before Almighty God in humility and rising to praise Him in gratitude and going forth to obey Him in faithfulness has power in the world to change lives and redirect society–then the enemy will be working to put a stop to it.
Count on that.
If God uses our worship to transform sinners, starting with us, then the enemy will do all in his power to neutralize it.
So–how is your worship these days?
Are you working at worship, at learning to humble yourself and praise Him more effectively? Are you giving yourself anew to the Savior throughout the day, every day?
Notice the one question we did not ask: Are you getting anything out of your worship? Scripture does not allow us to ask that. We are promised nothing from worship. In worship, we do the giving. We give Him praise and prayers, offerings and love, our time and our attention, and ultimately ourselves.
Warren Wiersbe used to say, “Worship pays. But if you worship for the pay, it won’t pay.”
What has the evil advisor told you in the secret recesses of your mind and heart to dissuade you from worship?
There are so many lies abroad about worship. Here are some of the most popular, in no particular order…
One. Worship is all about you.
You’ll need a worshipful setting, worshipful music, in a building with worshipful architecture. The leaders of the worship service must do things just right, otherwise, if you do not worship, the fault is all theirs.
Two. You should be “getting something” out of worship.
If you leave the church campus unable to identify what you “got out” of the service, someone has failed you mightily.
Three. Worship is irrelevant; it doesn’t matter.
Millions of Americans are buying into that lie. All you have to do is see how most people skip church altogether on Sundays.
Four. Only exciting, emotional worship matters.
If it’s not loud, fast, and intense, it doesn’t count.
Listen to people put down the more traditional, more restrained, more formal type of worship and you will know that lie is being bought into. We speak of worship services being dull, dead, sleep-inducing, and cold. One wonders if it ever occurs to us that the Father in Heaven alone judges worship.
Five. Boring worship does not count.
Six. Worship matters only inside the church building.
Seven. You can worship on the creek bank as well as you can in church.
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Sin is Only as Hidden as God Allows
If you are a child of God and you are playing with sin, know that he is more concerned about the state of your soul than your reputation or whether you get to keep your job or family. What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul (Matthew 16:26)? If we are his child and we do not repent, he will discipline us (Hebrews 12:6-8). As we consider this, if there is any evil way in us, we should lay it at his feet in repentance.
If we have been nursing secret sin and we have not been exposed, that is because up to this point, God has not decided to reveal it. Nothing we do is unknown to God, and in his omnipotence, he could expose us at any moment if he so chooses. Sin is only as hidden as God allows.
We see a perfect example of this in the life of Gehazi (2 Kings 5). God had used Elisha to heal Naaman of leprosy. In his joy, Naaman offers to give Elisha expensive gifts, but Elisha refuses. Elisha did not want to give the impression that Naaman could buy God’s favor. He also wanted to show that the servants of the true God are not like the pagan priests. Faithful servants of God are not greedy for earthly gain.
Gehazi, Elisha’s servant, was not quite as noble and decided he wanted some of Naaman’s riches, so he went back to Naaman and said, “Elisha changed his mind; we could use some of your gifts.” Having been healed of leprosy, Naaman is more than happy to give him bags of silver and clothing. Gehazi takes his treasures home, puts them in his house, and goes to see Elisha.
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3 Things You Should Know about Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy is concerned with the bond between God and His people. God acted in His gracious condescension, entered into a special relationship with them. He loved His people and redeemed them by His outstretched hand of power (see especially Deut. 7:7–9; Deut. 9:5–6; Deut. 14:2). At Sinai, He entered into this formal relationship with them. He drew near them and promised, “I will be your God, and you shall be My people.” Hence, the covenant was a bond between God and man, sovereignly imposed by God in His grace, whereby He and His people gave expression to their relationship in formal terms.
The book of Deuteronomy is significant in itself, but also because of the number of times it is quoted in the New Testament. The proclamation of Jesus and His disciples drew directly from it. Jesus quoted it in His temptations (Matt. 4:4, 7, 10) and reaffirmed its emphasis on an all-embracing love to God (Matt. 22:37–38). The Apostolic preaching in Acts draws heavily upon it, especially in pointing to the fulfilment of the word concerning the prophetic office in the person of Jesus (Deut. 18:15; Acts 3:22). At least seven New Testament epistles contain quotations from Deuteronomy, perhaps the most significant of these being in Galatians 3:10–14. Here, Paul writes that Christ has redeemed us from the curse of which Deuteronomy speaks (see Deut. 21:23) by becoming a curse for us (Gal. 3:13).
The name of this book in English, Deuteronomy, has come via Latin and Greek and means “the second law,” assuming that the reference in Deuteronomy 17:18 means exactly that. However, what that passage refers to is the king having a copy of the law for himself. The content of the book shows that it is not a second law but a renewal of the covenant made at Mount Sinai (called “Horeb” throughout Deuteronomy, except in Deuteronomy 33:2). It is linked expressly with the gracious promises God gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (see, for example, Deut. 6:10–11; Deut. 7:7–9). It also marks the completion of the Pentateuch, with the emphasis on the partial fulfilment of the patriarchal promises just prior to Israel’s entry to the land that God had sworn to give them.
There are three special matters that readers should know about the book of Deuteronomy and its teaching.
1. Deuteronomy is a covenantal document.
As a covenantal document, Deuteronomy is concerned with the bond between God and His people. God acted in His gracious condescension, entered into a special relationship with them. He loved His people and redeemed them by His outstretched hand of power (see especially Deut. 7:7–9; Deut. 9:5–6; Deut. 14:2). At Sinai, He entered into this formal relationship with them. He drew near them and promised, “I will be your God, and you shall be My people.”
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